This invention relates to recording of multimedia assets, such as video programs. More particularly, this invention relates to systems and methods for managing resources and preventing conflicts when locally recording media assets in multimedia delivery systems.
Multimedia delivery networks (e.g., cable, satellite, Internet) have been developed that can deliver various multimedia assets from a remote source to a user's equipment for viewing or interaction. Multimedia assets include live broadcast programs, web casts, Pay-per-View (PPV) events, and/or video-on-demand (VOD) content. Sometimes, a user may select multimedia content to be recorded locally on the user's equipment, for example, on a VCR or digital video recorder (PVR). A live broadcast is typically viewed and recorded at the scheduled time set by the broadcast station, whereas VOD content can be viewed and recorded at any user-specified time prior to the expiration time of the VOD content. PPV programs also have expiration dates and may be viewed and recorded at certain times specified by a content provider.
Recording a multimedia asset requires a tuner associated with the user equipment to be tuned to the channel in which the multimedia asset is available. Recording an additional multimedia asset at the same time on the same device could require an additional tuner. If the device does not have an additional tuner, the user may have to forgo recording the additional multimedia asset.
Further, each multimedia asset recorded locally requires some amount of local storage. The storage capacity of a user's equipment will typically set an upper bound on the number and length of multimedia assets the user may store locally.
Sometimes, particular multimedia assets that are broadcast are also available via VOD, PPV, and/or Internet mechanisms.
Accessing and optionally locally storing such multimedia assets using one mechanism versus another may be advantageous in one way or another to the user and/or service provider. Present day systems, however, lack an integrated approach to managing the access and/or recording of multimedia assets in a coordinate fashion across these mechanisms.